In a Flipkart-hosted press conference today, the CEOs of Flipkart and ASUS – Kalyan Krishnamurthy and Jerry Shen – came together to announce a long-term strategic partnership to launch products in India.

With this partnership with Asus, Flipkart will aim to leverage its data-driven research and insights and combine it with ASUS’s technological prowess to build smartphones customized for India. According to the company, in 2017, one in four smartphones sold in India across retail channels was via Flipkart. At the event, Flipkart also announced its ’40 by 20′ mission with an aim to gain 40% smartphone market share by 2020, roughly implying 100 million new customers.

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The first smartphone under this partnership will be the ASUS Zenfone Max Pro that will be launched on April 23. The Zenfone Max Pro, a first-to-world device, will be powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 636 and compete with the likes of Redmi Note 5 and Note 5 Pro as well as the affordable lineup from Honor. It will be, of course, available exclusively on Flipkart.

As a core pillar of our consumer centric strategy in India, we see tremendous opportunity in creating products and services that address India’s special market needs. With Flipkart’s partnership, we aim to gain more insights about Indian consumers’ needs which can help us develop even more suitable products for the Indian market. Flipkart’s unparalleled distribution reach and marketing strengths will help ASUS build strong awareness for our innovative high value products and reach consumers across India. We strongly believe this collaboration will provide both companies better opportunity to provide delightful propositions to Indian consumers.

– Jerry Shen, CEO, ASUS

Going forward, as an ASUS premier partner and seller for smartphones, Flipkart will be the primary sales channel for ASUS Zenfones. While both companies will collaborate in the co-creation of new products for the Indian market based on consumer insights, they will also support each other in marketing activities.